I am not sure how common steel- mail would have been. In an inventory of Prince Edward of the 20 something suits he has of mail at this time (which he seems to be giving away). Only 2 are steel. The rest are simple mail. So my guess as it is about 10 times in soem cases the cost it was very uncommon for all but the very wealthy. It would be a good test but not sure if Michael was going to test super armour..

RPM

Sorry ... which Prince Edward was that?

I wasn't suggesting that "super armor" should have been tested here (though of course it would be interesting to test some steel mail if that were possible), I'm talking within the context of the discussion of mail getting thinner in the later periods, into the Renaissance etc., from what I understand this is also the time when you start to see a bit more of the tempered mail, which might offset thinner links.

Thanks you very much for that close up picture of the standard. It looks very much what I was thinking. What I am curious about is why it is so much more. If it was used like in this picture you posted of a very dense mail weave that could be a clue. Thanks for the pictures. Sadly the museum is closed the late and high medieval sections at the BM. Luckily they will reopen with a totally remodeled look in DEcember!

Jean,

Prince Edward son of Edward III. I was just speaking to a person who I think is very knowing on mail and the subject of mail getting thinner came up. I haev never seen this trend and he seems to indicate it as well. I really am not sure mail in general gets thinner. I think mail though does vary a great deal in any time period though.

I never said that mail gets lighter later in the period. I said that mail tends to be lighter when it is used as a secondary defense and this is more often the case after plate becomes more widespread. When mail is the primary defense it is almost always substantial regardless of the time period. Of course I'm speaking generally. It is the only way one can speak on a discussion forum.

Hi... This is my first post in myArmoury, and I'm not a great expert in the knowledge of ancient arms and armour... The only "swords" I have are two brazilians Fac§es (Machete in spanish) and I use to train with the two... I also use a waster to train the longsword fencing, using the material that I can find on the net, and I use to train with all the farming tools I have in my farm as if they were medieval weapons(train with the 20 pound maul isn't easy...) I want to buy some longsword replica one day.... I dressed a mail shirt once, and i haven't felt secure inside this armour, felt like someone with a barbecue espeto could kill me easily...

I haven't read all the posts, but reading the test of the armour made me think about some questions... I'm tthankfulif someone explain them to me...

1- Would be reasonable to say, by the tests on the mail and the jack, that a warrior dressed in a full set of rivetted mail, gambeson and jack would be immune to any kind of arrow/bolt shot, including heavy crossbows? If this is true, the common knowledge that says the english longbow made armour useless is not true, so how did the english managed to win the battle of Agincourt using ostensively the Longbow?

2- How much would weight a full set of this armour (gambeson/riveted mail/jack)?

3- The test cut on the jack was interesting to show the legendary slicing power of the katana(it made the european swords ridiculous...), however... A look on the european swords used on this test shows that they have a design more adequate for thrusts than slices or cuts, and I wander how a viking age sword, made to cut, would work on the jack... I read an essay once saying that a viking sword could even cut through the viking era chain mail, a deed that not even the katana would do... Is that true?

Agincourt is an odd case; it is not that the longbowmen killed so many knights with the longbow it is that they broke the knights charges, knocked them off the horses to get trampled by the next row of horsemen, they killed many lightly armored crossbowmen, they injured and captured many French knights and later murdered them when the rear train was attacked by the French to prevent these men from escaping and rejoining the fight. There were many more factors to the English victory at Agincourt than the archers. That said plate protects well against arrows but it is not perfect, people lifted their visors and took arrows to the face and arrows found weak spots and gapes in the armor.

Crecy on the other hand shows how the longbow was overtaking maille armor; many men in maille did die from arrow storms. More plate armor started showing up after Crecy.

I think that few arrows would hit the weak spots of the armour, or uncovered faces... It would be very expensive to shot so many arrows for so little damage... thinking that just a 20 layers jack would stop almost all arrows is strange... It was said that a edged blade would cut easily through the jack... Wouldn't the bodkin arrow head have been edged at that time, diferently from the arrow used at the test?Daniel de Castro Caputo

Jacks are more of a late 15th c thing. I read recently that looking at all the data from the War of the Roses the side goaded into charging first always lost; the battles always started with and exchange of arrows. Longbows works as a psychological weapon more than a mass kill rate weapon after a time and it shut down Calvary for the most part, it is only one cog in the war machine.James Barker
Historic Life http://www.historiclife.com/index.html
Archer in La Belle Compagnie http://www.labelle.org/

In these battles I think more of the horses were killed than the riders, which effectively broke up the cavalry attack. Most of the horses were not fully armored, some were not armored at all (particularly remounts etc.) Other factors then made it very difficult for the injured knights to fight as infantry (sloping ground, mud etc.)

Incidentlaly this debate about longbows vs. plate armor etc. has been debated ad nauseum in this and many other forums. You may want to do a search.System D'Armes Historical European fencing in New Orleans

I am unsure if they are a repair or not but those dangling triangles of maille added on are a historical practice you can see in art and effigies. As they are layered on top for decoration there is no real reason to make them riveted; they are not part of the defensive structure.James Barker
Historic Life http://www.historiclife.com/index.html
Archer in La Belle Compagnie http://www.labelle.org/

Sorry it took so long, but as promised, I tested some more swords against the jack samples. The results were surprising, and didn't require photographs.

Albion Duke: Type XIII, very sharp, devastating against tatami, noodles, meat, etc. could not cut the jack at all...not 30 layers, and not 20...not even the first layer was cut.

Albion Trionia: same exact story.

Albion Allectus gladius: could not cut, but pierced a 30 layer jack like it wasn't even there....if the words "like a hot knife through butter" were ever applicable to a situation, this was it. All the way to the wood every time.

These results were very surprising, as I expect the XIIIs to make short work of the jack (being so heavily cut oriented). I was so surprised that I thought I was off my game and tried to cut with the Brescia Spadona to see if either I was having a bad day or months of lying in my garage somehow made the linen harder to cut. The Spadona cut through the 20 layer jack just as easily as before, so it was neither me not the jack. The XIIIs could not get through.

As for why they could not cut...if I had to guess, I would say that their flexibility is what hurt them. When they struck the jack, the blades were in a U shape (not that extreme, of course). Because the blades are so wide and thin, they tend to deform in the air even before impact. I tried both hacking and draw cuts with both swords, no difference. The Brescia Spadona is not as sharp as either my Duke or Tritotian, but is substantially stiffer and because there is so little mass near the point, there is no deformation in the air prior to impace. Both the Duke and the Tritonia are notorious tatami killers, so considering the results of these tests there is no doubt in my mind that they were mend for unarmored flesh.

And, yes, for those who may wonder, I did cut with the COP with the correct edge orientation.

Assuming that these swords are accurate represenations of medieval originals (and I have no doubt whatsoever that they are), I would at this point not hesitate to conjecture that layered linen defenses either did not exist in the 12th and 13th centuries or were no where as popular as people tend to believe these days.

On the other hand...

Maybe our modern heat treat that we like to think of as superior makes the swords a litle too prone to flex and vibrations. Period originals were sometimes "poorly" heat treated (by modern standards) and some had significant unhardened or iron content...perhaps that made for a better sword in that it made them less prone to flex (but more pone to bending) and vibration and therefore made them better cutters (harmonic "deadness"). Perhaps our superior modern heat treat is not so superior after all. Certainly it makes the sword more durable, but better? Maybe not.

Maybe our modern heat treat that we like to think of as superior makes the swords a litle too prone to flex and vibrations. Period originals were sometimes "poorly" heat treated (by modern standards) and some had significant unhardened or iron content...perhaps that made for a better sword in that it made them less prone to flex (but more pone to bending) and vibration and therefore made them better cutters (harmonic "deadness"). Perhaps our superior modern heat treat is not so superior after all. Certainly it makes the sword more durable, but better? Maybe not.

Well that's certainly an interesting thing to ponder... On the other hand, if the sword flexes during the cut, whether it stays bent or flexes back should have only a minor influence on the result, don't you think? I don't know if a sword of the same thickness but with a different heat treat is really more difficult to flex, or if it is just as easy to flex but stays bent...

Another thing I wonder is why the katana is so good against the jack (since if I'm not mistaken it remains the best of your test?). I'm not aware of a Japanese armor similar to that? They must have been lucky in their design --
Vincent
Ensis Sub Caelo

Well that's certainly an interesting thing to ponder... On the other hand, if the sword flexes during the cut, whether it stays bent or flexes back should have only a minor influence on the result, don't you think? I don't know if a sword of the same thickness but with a different heat treat is really more difficult to flex, or if it is just as easy to flex but stays bent...

Not if it impacts the target with the blade in a slight bend. Then the influence would be significant. Can you think of another reason why the Brescia Spadona cuts a jack so much better than the Duke?

The Brescia is....not quite as sharp....thicker at the COP (but not by much) and has significantly less mass forward of the balde which would reduce the energy delivered to the target. Both are used two handed by the same person in the same way, yet the sharper, wider and thiner sword can't cut the Jack, while the stiffer, thicker and narrower sword can.

Quote:

Another thing I wonder is why the katana is so good against the jack (since if I'm not mistaken it remains the best of your test?). I'm not aware of a Japanese armor similar to that? They must have been lucky in their design

I'd say it's good against the jack because it does not deform on impact and does not vibrate, but that's just a theory.New York Historical Fencing Association
www.newyorklongsword.com

But building a sword, the size of the Baron just for maiming unarmoured opponents would be pretty pointless, since that can be accomplished with a much smaller, one handed sword. So i guess it must have had a very special purpose. And just beating the snot out of a maille-clad knight would work much better with a big club. Please don't understand me wrong, but could this result be related to a mistake in using the sword? Have you had another person try on the target as well, or is that out of question? But never the less, great testing and very interesting results! Even if they leave more questions than answers in this particular case! I'm pretty surprised by the performance of the Brescia Spadona, and the Katana.

Not if it impacts the target with the blade in a slight bend. Then the influence would be significant. Can you think of another reason why the Brescia Spadona cuts a jack so much better than the Duke?

No, the reason you give seems pretty sound to me... Indeed if the sword bends in the air or upon impact and it disturbs edge alignement, it is a problem. But I'm just not sure changing the heat treat is the solution to that problem, if the sword remains as easy to bend but just does not vibrate afterwards.

Quote:

The Brescia [...] has significantly less mass forward of the blade which would reduce the energy delivered to the target.

It is not always as simple as that, because the energy delivered to the target is not simply a function of the mass on the blade.

Assuming you put the same energy in all swords during your cut, the energy impacting and/or cutting the target is a fraction of this initial energy determined both by the mass distribution and the motion of the swords prior the impact. Bottom line is, you could have more energy with less mass on blade, simply because you can move this small mass faster, for example.

But I don't think the difference should be significant in this case, so your expanation is still the best so far...--
Vincent
Ensis Sub Caelo

But building a sword, the size of the Baron just for maiming unarmoured opponents would be pretty pointless, since that can be accomplished with a much smaller, one handed sword. So i guess it must have had a very special purpose. And just beating the snot out of a maille-clad knight would work much better with a big club. Please don't understand me wrong, but could this result be related to a mistake in using the sword? Have you had another person try on the target as well, or is that out of question? But never the less, great testing and very interesting results! Even if they leave more questions than answers in this particular case! I'm pretty surprised by the performance of the Brescia Spadona, and the Katana.

It's a valid concern, but I don't think it applies. There are two ways to cut with a two handed sword...delivering the blade smack down on the target and the "draw cut", where the delivery is in motion along the target surface, creating a slicing action. What you do with your hands and body is largely irrelevant as long as you deliver your edge with sufficient speed and power and at the correct angle (it's a very big if, though). I tried both methods of cutting with each sword I tested. The draw cut always achieved better results.

So the question to ask is can the tester deliver the edge on target correctly. In this case, since the tester (yours truly ) is very successful at cutting with some swords but not others, you would have to conlude that the variable in the tests is the sword being used, not how it was used. The "human interface" to the Duke is the same as the human interface to the Brescia Spadona. It also helps that I have about 18 years of exprience cutting with two handed weapons of various types.

You can say that I used the Tritonia incorrectly, since single handed swords are not my forte. I doubt this is the case, but then I wouldn't know, would I?

Your point about making such massive swords for killing unarmored opponents is a good one, but a lighter smaller sword would not do it as well, which could be very important, and it would not serve the purpose of bashing mail clad knights either.New York Historical Fencing Association
www.newyorklongsword.com

But I'm just not sure changing the heat treat is the solution to that problem, if the sword remains as easy to bend but just does not vibrate afterwards.

I'm not sure that's the only difference. If you take a through hardened katana and a traditional (real nihonto) katana of the same cross section and strike each in the pommel, you will see that the "spring tempered" sword vibrates, while the real one does not (at least not that you can detect).

I have a very cheap Pakistani sword made about 15 years ago and it's very thin but does not flex or vibrate easily. If you bend it, it stays bent, but it feels stiffer than a modern spring tempered sword. Perhaps this sword is so poorly heat treated that it has a lot of unhardened steel in it, and maybe that would make it a better cutter if it were not such a piece of crap in all other respects. New York Historical Fencing Association
www.newyorklongsword.com

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